Archive for January, 2009

I love a lot of things here. I love that the President of the Untied States embraces technology and posts his weekyl address on YouTube. I love that within this weeks address, he says “hold my administration accountable” for his plans. And I love there is a PDF download right under the video, outlining in more detail the plans proposed and benchmarks with which to measure success.

My beautiful and brilliant 9yr old niece Kayla had her story published today in the Daily Herald. She met him at his Chicago campaign headquarters over the summer, and the Daily Herald asked today for her story…

We asked you to tell us what Barack Obama’s inauguration as president means to you, and you responded with eloquent essays, poems and even paintings commemorating this moment in history.

‘Even when you’re important, you’re still like everybody else’

By Kayla Cook

When I met Barack Obama, he told me to work hard in school and dream big dreams.

I got to meet him because my Uncle Pete Dagher was running the Chicago Obama headquarters.

Me, my mom and my dad went there one night. I was really excited because he was a United States senator running for president.

That day at camp, we had an activity. We made bracelets out of a red, white or blue pipe cleaners and red, white and blue beads for the Fourth of July. I chose blue. And I did a pattern of blue, red and white beads.

We also made posters. Mine said, “Obama Rocks!” because I knew I was going to go to the headquarters.

When we went there that night, I was sitting comfortably in an orange chair. And then I heard his footsteps. Then I had to stand up. He walked in. I was standing between my mom and dad. He walked right past my mom, who was on my left, and he went straight to me.

Watching a Presidential inauguration is always a fascinating experience for me. Watching a usually somber outgoing President and then looking with hope to the new President always makes me wonder what those individuals are thinking in that moment.

I like the pomp and circumstance, the protocol, the orchestrations of an inauguration. It really is remarkable to witness such a peaceful and orderly governmental transition. I watching it on a shaky internet feed from CNN.com through Facebook. Clearly CNN was not prepared to scale their feed to serve the likely millions of simulaneous web viewers. The Facebook side of the event seemed more stable and frankly pretty intrguing in watching my “friends” update their statuses in realtime, mimicing a chat. The CNN video feed was choppy at best, frozen and contanstanly buffering in spite of my T1 connection. The audience for this webcast was probably off the charts; unprecedented, so perhaps they did ok. But in no way was it a smooth video experience.

Lewis, 82, will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the 81st Academy Awards on Feb. 22.

He’ll be presented with an Oscar statuette to honor his decades of work with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Lewis has been MDA’s national chairman since 1952 and has raised more than $2 billion through his Labor Day Telethon since 1966.

“Jerry is a legendary comedian who has not only brought laughter to millions around the world,” said Academy President Sid Ganis, “but has also helped thousands upon thousands by raising funds and awareness for those suffering from muscular dystrophy.”

The award is given periodically to an individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.

Lewis, who has made Las Vegas his home for much of his life, joins a list that includes Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Charlton Heston, Danny Kaye and Quincy Jones.

The award is named after Jean Hersholt, who served as president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund for 18 years.

Lewis, who has never been nominated for an Oscar, won a Golden Globe award in 1966 for his role in “Boeing (707) Boeing (707)” for Best Motion Picture Actor in Musical/Comedy.